Dead Island Riptide Review

  There was a spurt of time where the industry was pumping out zombie horror games like they were the second coming.  Game after game was designed to slaughter hoards of the undead.  Dead Island was in this wave and designed to showcase the 360s capabilities.  The game was met with moderate success and so came its successor Dead Island Riptide developed by Techland.  Riptide takes the original title and expands on it, kinda.

Let's Kill Some Zombies

  One thing that this game lets you do it's killing a shit ton of zombie.  Taking place in first person view you can find and build weapons to take down the undead.  Guns do come later but the real gameplay comes from wielding a sword or a modified shovel and taking down some zombies.  The weapons can be modified with fire and poisons but will deteriorate over time, which leads to a mechanic where you are constantly having to spend money to fix your weapons. 

  In this second installment of the Dead Island games, you are once again stuck on an island of the undead with the heroes from the last game.  The acting hasn't really improved either.  Its hard to tell if the game takes itself seriously as the tropes they role out with are pretty cringe-inducing.  The story has a hint of being interesting but the dialogue just seems to get in the way.  The music is okey and the other sounds assets are pretty solid, I just wish some of the dialogue was left out. 

It Just Misses the Mark

  For everything this game does right, there is a glaring issue that pulls the game back.  To be fair the game is now 5 years old but it's not so much the graphics that hold this game back but it's gameplay in general.  A key example of this is when a zombie throws a knife at you and it connects, its an auto-kill.  Doesn't matter what level you are or how much health you have, if you are unlucky enough to be hit with a knife you are dead.  The only justification I could see for this feature is a random challenge thrown in for multi-player where one player now has to focus on their ally.  Even still it's incredibly stupid and frustrates a single player mode.  I really didn't like multiplayer in the first one so I didn't even bother with this title.

  One mechanic that really throws me off this title is that everything levels with you.  The higher level you go, the higher your enemies.  There is no real perk to doing any of the side quests because you can't level past your enemies.  The only thing you get is some more skills and maybe some mods.  It doesn't feel worth it.

  What I can say about this game is that it looks good for when it was made.  It still looks pretty good for even today's standards.  The controls are pretty tight and you have a surprisingly good feel of when you can hit an enemy.  When you finally get guns you get to turn into a zombie killing machine and it's an okay time.  Until of course you have trouble dodging a charging enemy and you get to watch the death screen yet again.

  This is one of those games that could have been really great had a few more moments been taken into the thought on mechanics; maybe some better writing as well.  While the story is short there is plenty to do.  If you can get this game in a cheap bundle or it's on a really good sell, it is an okay game.  I certainly wouldn't knock any decent titles down the list to play it.

TL;DR:

 Dead Island is a first-person zombie survival game that hit in a few places but misses in several others.  While not terrible this game could have been much better than it was, especially on the dialogue side.